Bulgarian Conservatives Brag about Parliamentary Boost

The leader of the conservative RZS party, Yane Yanev, insists he will be able to reinstate his parliamentary group in the fall. Photo by BGNES

The parliamentary group of Bulgaria's conservative Order, Law and Justice (RZS) party will have more members than the required quota of 10, the RZS leader, Yane Yanev, says.

The new group will have anywhere between 11 and 15 Members of the Parliament, Yanev pointed out, adding he had already notified the Speaker from the ruling center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) party, Tsetska Tsacheva, about the plan and she did not have objections.

During the talk with Tsacheva it had emerged that the reinstatement of a parliamentary group after its fall apart is possible because there is no such clause in the Parliamentary Code, so “what is not banned is allowed,” the RZS MP, Emil Vasilev, joined in.

Yanev pointed out the new group will not have MPs from the two main opposition fractions – the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) nor will he accept back those who, in the beginning of the year, broke the RZS ranks.

“Only independent MPs, who will first become party members will be allowed to join in,” according to the party leader.

Since the beginning of the year RZS suffered the defection of MPs Mario Tagarinski and Dimitar Chukarski, and of the RZS leadership member, Dimitar Abadzhiev. The changes took its parliamentary group below the ten-member minimum and stripped it of its official status. Yanev was quick to blame Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, for the falling apart of the parliamentary group.

On another topic, involving recent cases of police brutality, Yanev said he had been alerted about many other incidents, in addition to the one in the city of Kardzhali where 4 police officers thrashed a family. The RZS leader gave as example police illegally raiding the offices of two companies, and 7 other cases of police violence, adding he had notified Borisov already and the latter apologized.

“The Bulgarian police faces huge problems – people are incompetent and not motivated at all,” Yanev concluded.

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